Apirana Ngata

Apirana Ngata (3 July 1874-14 July 1950) was a New Zealander MP for Eastern Maori from 1905 to 1943, succeeding Wi Pere and preceding Tiaki Omana. He was a member of the New Zealand Liberal Party, the United Party of New Zealand, and the New Zealand National Party.

Biography
Apirana Ngata was born in Te Araroa, New Zealand on 3 July 1874. He was educated at Te Aute College, and received a scholarship to study at Canterbury University College, graduating in political science in 1893. Having qualified as a lawyer in 1897, he was the first Maori university graduate from a New Zealand university, and one of the first New Zealanders to hold the degrees of BA and LL B. He had a great influence on the Kotahitanga movement and was one of the founders of the Young Maori Movement, entering Parliament in 1905 for the Eastern Maori electorate. A powerful orator, he emerged as one of the outstanding Maoris of the twentieth century. He was Minister for Native Affairs from 1928 to 1934, in which post he worked closely with the Maori leader, Te Puea Herangi. In 1931, he began to inaugurate his Maori Land Development Scheme, which greatly expanded Maori land under cultivation. He established the Maori Purposes Fund to finance school construction and was chairman from 1928 to 1934 of the Maori Board of Ethnological Research. He was interested in the kinship between the Maoris and Polynesians, and as president of the Polynesian Society he published his two-volume book, Nga Moeatea, in 1929. In 1934 he was forced to resign from the government, as a Native Affairs Commission found him guilty of misusing funds to help further Maori projects. He was chiefly responsible for Maori recruitment during World War I and World War II, but managed to prevent them from being conscripted.